


Vegan Cupcakes for All (Or Whatever)

by Medeafic



Category: Star Trek RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe, Cooking, Food, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-08
Updated: 2011-04-08
Packaged: 2017-10-17 18:35:01
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,682
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/179955
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Medeafic/pseuds/Medeafic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Chris is a top chef; Zach is an obnoxious celebrity who needs a wake-up call.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Vegan Cupcakes for All (Or Whatever)

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Русский available: [Веганских кексов всем (или что захочешь)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/841808) by [EarthlyWays](https://archiveofourown.org/users/EarthlyWays/pseuds/EarthlyWays)
  * Translation into 中文 available: [给所有人送上素食蛋糕（或者随便什么）](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1311412) by [SilentBridge](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SilentBridge/pseuds/SilentBridge)



> The Russian translation of this fic (link above) also includes some gorgeous illustrations. Check them out!
> 
> Written for the Spring trekrpfexchange on LJ for clandie_kid. This version of Zach is based on [this interview](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4vV582cxhaE), in which he says that he would have self-destructed if he became a huge star ten years earlier than he did.

The chef-caterer-whatever guy thinks that Zach’s boyfriend is a dick. Zach can see it written clearly across his face, and in the flinty blue gaze that won’t go anywhere near Ben’s face, and in the _tick tick tick_ of fingers against what looks like a nicely-toned bicep. And Zach has somehow forgotten his name, can only think of him as Chef Guy, and that’s so fucking rude, but what can you do? At this stage in his career, he’s so used to other people remembering things for him that all he ever worries about is remembering his lines.

“Asian fusion,” Chef Guy repeats, and Ben nods vigorously.

“Zach loves it.”

“You love Asian fusion?” Chef Guy is staring at Zach now, his lips curled up slightly, and Zach finds himself sucking on his own bottom lip, wondering what Chef Guy’s would feel like.

“Uh. I guess?” he says, when it becomes apparent that he’s supposed to talk now.

“Mr. Quinto—”

“You can call me Zach.”

“Do you even know what Asian fusion is?”

“I’m guessing it’s Asian food. Fused with something.”

“Like the other night, baby,” Ben says, in this cajoling, you’re-so-silly tone that never fails to drive Zach insane. Usually it ends in a rough fuck session, because Ben is still hotter than the average Hollywood waiter-cum-actor, and that way Zach can take out his frustrations _and_ have a satisfying orgasm.

But a fuck is out of the question right now, standing in the middle of a large kitchen, all stainless steel and white tile. It looks as sanitized as a hospital, and Zach is pretty doubtful anything tasty could really come out of a kitchen as sterile as this. Not that he has much idea about food. It’s a bit like art to him. He knows what he likes, and that’s about all that matters.

“What other night?” he asks Ben.

“Three Mothers. That was Asian fusion. You loved it.”

“And Three Mothers is that Spanish restaurant downtown?” Ben scowls, and Zach hides his satisfied smirk. If he can’t fuck it out, at least he can annoy Ben right back. He turns to Chef Guy. “Listen, Mr…” Chef Guy does not jump in to supply a name. “Listen, Mr. Chef, whatever Ben says is probably right. I’m not really that much of a foodie.”

Chef Guy cringes at the word, like he’s heard it too often over the course of his career.

“Alright, how about we— Can I have a word with you alone?” Zach asks, suddenly tired of messing around. He has things to do, people to see. But Ben’s about to go nuclear, so Zach grabs his arm and says, “Why don’t you wait for me in the car? I’ll just be a second.” He shoves the keys into his hand, and Ben looks slightly mollified.

Ben likes waiting in the car, because the car is some slick lease job that Zach’s agent made him take as part of a promotional arrangement. Zach has even seen him chatting up hot guys walking past sometimes, who are drawn by the thumping bass hammering out of the car speakers like moths to a flame.

“You better fire him,” Ben mutters, and Chef Guy snorts.

But they wait for Ben to leave and then Zach puts on his most apologetic smile. “I’m sorry about that.”

“Your boyfriend’s a moron.”

“Yeah, I kind of know that.”

“And my name is Chris. Not Mr. Chef.”

“Oh. Right. Thanks.”

“So he must suck like an industrial vacuum or something, because—”

“Yeah, pretty much.” Zach has been trying to break up with Ben for a while now, but it never quite seems to take. So he’s less offended than he might be at the unasked-for opinion on his love life. “Look – we came to you because we heard you’re good, so I think whatever you want to do will be fine.”

Chris is back to folding his arms. His chef whites look almost like a naval uniform if Zach squints a little, and he’s pretty. _Really_ pretty. Pretty in a masculine, mesmerizing kind of way and damn, if that really were a naval uniform, Zach would probably be trying to hit on him right now.

“Do you have something in your eye?”

“What? No.” Zach stops squinting. “Um. Whatever you want to make will be fine. So if we just send you the numbers for catering—”

“I’m sorry; you seem to be under the impression that I’ve agreed to something.”

Zach stares at him. It’s been a long time since anyone has said anything even resembling _no_ to Zachary Quinto, so for a second he’s not sure he heard right. “You – what? I thought…” He smiles then, and says in what he knows is a parody of Ben’s patronizing tone, “But why on earth wouldn’t you agree? It’ll be great publicity for you.”

The blue eyes turn icy. Ouch.

“Mr. Quinto, I understand that you don’t know much about food, so you’re just going to have to believe me when I tell you this. In the culinary world, I’m as famous as you are. I don’t need your publicity. And I certainly don’t need your annoying, twinky boyfriend telling me to cook Asian fucking fusion.”

“It doesn’t _have_ to be Asian fucking fusion.”

“Get out of my kitchen.”

“But – but I need _food_. For my _party_.”

“You can’t just come in and expect me to shut down my restaurant for an entire night just for _you_. No matter how much money you throw at me.”

Chris is glaring at him like he’s imagining slicing and dicing him, and Zach wonders if chefs know how to butcher animals as well. Probably. And everything coming out of his mouth is making him sound more and more like an entitled asshole. “It’s my _birthday_ ,” he finds himself whining, while his brain is saying, _Shut up!_

“I once turned down a gig catering the Queen of Sweden’s birthday. Why the hell would I be any more likely to cook for yours?”

Zach leans into the bench and cocks his hip. “’Cause I’m sexy?” He grins, and sees Chris’s lips twitch, although he keeps his arms firmly folded.

“And?”

“’Cause I’ll let you do whatever you like, however, and with whatever.” He lets the innuendo sink in before he continues. “You want to serve up roast aardvark? Go ahead. Or maybe some new root they discovered in the Amazon? Sure thing. Just no cilantro. I hate cilantro.”

“Thanks for the offer, but I’m into sustainable eating. Ethical gourmet food.”

“Hey, sounds good to me. You can push your agenda and I won’t say a word against it. Hell, I’ll promote it. Vegan cupcakes for all, or whatever.”

Chris actually laughs then, and Zach relaxes a little. For a while there he was expecting a Gordon Ramsay-like explosion. But Chris Pine seems like he’s more chill than the average celebrity chef. So far, anyway.

“From what I’ve heard,” Chris says, “you’re not so different. You do a lot of work with animals, right? And for the environment.”

Zach shrugs. He used to be pretty passionate about it, but these days…these days everything in his life seems plastic and pre-packaged, and he just supports the causes his agent tells him to support. “I’ve got a reputation as kind of a green freak.”

“You don’t even know me, man,” Chris says, shaking his head with a smile. “Why do you want me so bad?”

 _Because you’re resisting_ , Zach thinks immediately, and hates himself a little for it. “Ben says you’re amazing.”

“Ben probably doesn’t think that anymore.”

“Ben probably won’t be at the party.”

“Oh, really?” Chris drawls. He looks up at the clock on the wall. “You’re cutting into my prep time. My team is waiting out there in the restaurant for me to let them come in and get started.”

“So tell me you’ll do it and I’ll get out of your way.” Chris regards him with a steady gaze, and Zach tries to turn up the charisma to full wattage. “Come on. Take pity on a poor dumb actor.”

“Whatever I want?” Chris asks.

“Whatever you can dream up.”

“What’s the budget?”

“Whatever you can dream up,” Zach says again, feeling heady with victory. Screw it; it’s his party, he can cry over the bill if he wants to. Chris gives this adorable little half-smile and Zach adds, “You’ll be there, right, if you do it? You’ll be there cooking, or overseeing or whatever your chefly duty is?”

Chris is moving around the large island bench now, tucking a red dishtowel into his back pocket, and Zach has to fight not to grab at his ass as he bends to take out a large stainless steel bowl. The dishtowel sways, and Zach thinks of bulls and red flags and has to whack his wrist-bone into the bench to distract himself.

“Alright, I’ll cook for you. And yeah, I’ll be there doing my chefly duty. Call in the details to my corporate office; ask to speak to Zoë Saldana. She’s my business partner for the catering arm, and she’ll take your information. Can you fuck off now, please?”

“Fucking off as ordered, Chef.” Zach, not quite knowing what to do, raises his hand to wave and then salutes him awkwardly, but Chris doesn’t seem to notice.

Zach ambles out of the restaurant. “I think you’re wanted,” he calls to the kitchen crew, who are lounging around in the opulent restaurant. They barely glance at him, and it stings his pride a little. Goddamn food junkies. Figures they wouldn’t know a _real_ celebrity.

Ben is playing something so loud in the car that Zach thinks it probably counts as terrorism by noise, and he turns it off abruptly before snapping his seatbelt in.

“Fired the asshole?” Ben asks, powering up his window.

Zach checks the rear-view and squeals out into the road. “Yeah, so about that, Ben. We need to talk.”

  
***

  
“Hey, Zach. It’s Chris Pine calling.”

“Oh, hey. How’s that whole food thing working out for you?”

There’s a pause, and then Chris says, “Just fine so far. If you’re inquiring about the catering for your birthday, that’s what I was calling about.”

“You’re still doing it, right? I dumped my boyfriend and everything, so even if you pull out, you still owe me a fuck on the night.” As soon as the words are out of his mouth, Zach removes the cell from his ear and smacks himself methodically in the forehead with the heel of his palm once, twice, three times. _Chris Pine is not your buddy,_ he tells himself sternly. _Don’t joke around like that. You’ll scare him off!_

But, thank Christ, there is laughter coming from the phone. “I’ll keep that in mind. But no, I wasn’t planning on pulling out. I just wondered if you’d organized a cake.”

“Cake?”

“It’s your birthday, right?”

“Yeah, but not my eighth.”

“Everyone should have cake on their birthday, Zach.” Chris sounds deadly serious. There must be something wrong with him, Zach decides. No one should be so focused on food, and especially not cake.

“Well, no, I can’t say that I’ve organized a cake. Or, I don’t know – my people might have. They usually do that kind of thing.”

“If you don’t mind, I’d like to make it.” It’s not a request; it’s a command.

No big deal. “Whatever, dude. I’ll make some calls and veto any other baked goods.” Inspiration hits him. “Your cake will reign supreme.”

“Iron Chef? Really?”

“Not the US version,” Zach says defensively. After their first meeting he’s started getting into cooking shows. Iron Chef is the most fun; he likes the commentary. Also, the Japanese eat things that Zach has never even considered, so almost every episode feels like a culinary trek into weirdness. And, he has to admit, deliciousness.

“Actually, since Alton Brown took over the commentary, the US version has improved a lot. Anyway, there’s something else we need to sort out,” Chris says. “I’m still concerned that you haven’t come to a tasting. You need to come out to Piñon and try what I’m making before the night.”

The truth is, Zach hasn’t trusted himself to go to a tasting. He’s been having fantasies of lolling on a low couch and being fed delicacies by Chris Pine’s elegant fingers, although whatever is being dropped into his mouth is usually pixilated, since Zach can’t really imagine what Chris might make for him. Going to a tasting would just make the fantasies that much worse. So he sent his assistant instead.

“Anton said everything tasted great.”

“I wasn’t aware that you and Anton shared a set of taste buds.”

“Fine, fine. I’ll come around and taste your wares and throw a tantrum over anything I don’t like. Just make sure to leave anything really calorific off the tasting menu. I can’t get fat. My guests can, though. In fact, if you wanted to do me a favor you’d tell me which things have the most trans fats in them, and I’ll push them on my rivals at the party.”

“There are _no_ trans fats in my food, thank you very much. And no one is going to blow up from one night of eating.”

“Says you,” Zach tells him darkly. “So when do you want me?”

  
***

  
Zach turns up to Piñon late on Monday morning, as instructed. The sign on the door says ‘Closed’, but he pushes it open just like Chris told him to. There’s an affable-looking ginger-haired man inspecting table settings, but he just gives Zach a friendly smile and goes back to his work.

Zach makes his way to the kitchen. He’s expecting a flurry of activity, but it’s as calm as military control, or at least what Zach thinks military control would be like. He tried out for an army movie once, even got a buzz cut to try out the look, but the fans’ response to his hair effectively squashed _that_ career move.

Chris is standing over in a corner, and there are three other cooks doing things like chopping and stirring and – well, Zach isn’t sure what that third guy is doing, pushing red mush through a pointy sieve. Chris has another dishtowel sticking out of his right back pocket again, blue today, and Zach wonders if it’s a chef-version of the handkerchief code. Light blue. Light blue means…

Zach coughs, tries to stop picturing Chris on his knees and enthusiastically blowing his cock, and coughs again. Chris glances up from doing something fancy-looking to a tray of square…things.

“Yo,” Zach greets him. He cringes after he’s said it. _Very fucking articulate, Quinto._

“Yo, yourself. You ready for some mouth orgasms? Hey, are you okay? John, can you get a glass of water for Zach, here?”

One of the other chefs brings across a glass for Zach, who downs it. “Swallowed the wrong way,” he croaks.

“John Cho,” says the other guy, reaching out a hand. “Sous chef.”

“Zach Quinto. Movie star.” Nothing coming out of his mouth today is making him sound any less douche-like.

“He’s a civvie,” Chris says to John with a smile, clapping Zach on the shoulder. Zach’s skin tingles as the fingers trail down his upper arm. “No idea what a sous chef is or does.”

John raises his eyebrows, but says nothing. “I should get back to it. Nice to meet you, Zach.”

Zach waves his hand at the tray Chris was working on. “This is what you want me to try?” But Chris shakes his head.

“I made up some tasting plates for you.” He leads Zach out to the restaurant, and directs him by the shoulders to the bar area. There are three plates along the countertop, each topped with a silver bell cover. Chris walks around the bar to the other side, and lifts the first cover with a flourish. “Ta-da!”

Zach has to smile. Chris is so proud of himself. “It looks nice.”

“Wait till you taste.” Chris actually winks at him, and Zach can’t help dropping his hand to adjust his crotch. Just for a second. “These are the vegetarian options, and they’re all safe for vegans too, except this one here—” Chris explains what each little bite is called, and what’s in it, but all Zach hears is “Blah blah blah terrine, blah blah blah goat’s cheese, blah blah blah white bean dip.”

“Uh huh. Do I get to taste them now?”

Chris leans across the bar, looking intently at Zach. “You really have no idea how to eat, do you?”

“Open mouth, insert food, chew. Pretty sure I haven’t been doing it wrong my entire life.”

Chris lifts the rest of the covers and waves his hand over the plates. “Take a good look. _Really_ look – at the colors, the shapes, the construction.”

He has a point. The second plate holds a selection of seafood, and Zach finds his eye drawn to two giant shrimp – plump white curls striped with a red so bright that it reminds him of candy canes. There’s a tiny bowl with a dipping sauce next to it, something green with purple flecks. The third plate has six or seven _hors d’oeuvres_ that actually make Zach’s mouth water looking at them, even though he has no idea what they are. The colors are pretty, though.

“You know what you need now?” Chris is grinning, and Zach can’t help grinning back. “You need a blindfold.”

“I prefer to get the first date out of the way before starting with the kinky stuff.”

“Trust me. Hop up on the seat there and let me take care of you.”

Ever since he got famous, people have been telling Zach to let them take care of him. None of them have ever sounded so sincere and so full of sexy promise as Chris does. So he sits obediently on the barstool, which is surprisingly comfortable, and watches Chris walk around the bar towards him, pulling the dishtowel from his back pocket. Zach tries his best not to whimper with lust as Chris folds it up, then ties it over his eyes.

“Can you see?” Chris asks, and Zach shakes his head. “Perfect.”

Zach tries to follow the sounds, turning his head and hoping he at least looks like he knows where Chris is, but a tap on his wrist makes him jump. Chris laughs.

“Asshole,” Zach tells him with equanimity.

“So I know you’re a big movie star, and you like to go out clubbing, see and be seen—” _You don’t know anything about me,_ Zach thinks, pressing his lips together. “—but don’t you ever just relax with friends, share a meal, talk, laugh, make memories?”

“I’m not a publicity robot. Of course I do.”

“And you don’t think that food is an important part of those times?”

“I think alcohol is more important. What’s going on here? You’re trying to convert me to the Church of the Foodie?” Zach smirks at the annoyed noise Chris makes. “Gotcha there, didn’t I?”

“For the sake of my blood pressure, can you promise me, _please_ , to stop saying that word? Self-proclaimed ‘foodies’ are the bane of my existence.”

“Alright. No more F-word.”

“Thank you. So. I’m betting food is more important to you than you think. What do you eat when you’re with your friends, not out anywhere, but when you’re eating with them around the dinner table?”

 _Food_ , Zach wants to say, but he heaves a big sigh and thinks about it. “I don’t know…warm stuff? Like chili or stew or a casserole. Usually I bring the bread and wine, because you can’t go wrong with bread and wine. But they make something warm, even in summer, and we all help ourselves from the same pot and sit around and talk and eat.” He doesn’t mention that it’s been a while since he’s eaten with his friends. Too long.

“Comfort food,” Chris says.

“Right. I guess. I…” He ducks his head and smiles to himself. “I eat more when I’m with them. I tend to forget about the evils of carbs and animal fats. But that food is not like this food.”

“What do you mean?”

“This stuff costs a lot more.”

Chris laughs at that, and Zach chalks it up as a win. Chris has a nice laugh.

“Home cooking is just as valuable as the food I serve in my restaurant, the fact that I charge twenty dollars for a starter notwithstanding. Using _real_ ingredients, using _real_ cooking methods instead of just nuking a plastic container of mac and cheese? That’s valuable.”

“You are fucking evangelical about this, aren’t you?”

“I am. And now it’s time to make a convert of you. Tell me what you can smell.”

“You know, my sense of smell was never really—”

“Stop making excuses, Quinto,” Chris says, and it’s right in his ear, Zach could swear. He’s close, very close, and when Zach breathes in, he can smell _Chris_. “Tell me.”

“I can smell deodorant and shampoo and…”

“And what?”

“Sweat.” Zach licks his upper lip and smiles, drops his voice lower. “You smell good.” He lets his mouth fall into that mostly-closed-slightly-open pout that makes fans go insane, and hopes like hell it has the same effect on Chris.

“Now try this.”

There are fingers cupping his chin, holding him in place, and Zach smells a salty aroma, not Chris anymore, but—“The sea!”

“Right. Now open up.” There’s a thumb running over his lips and Zach opens his mouth and tries to lick it, but finds his tongue touching something cold and firm instead. “Don’t worry about flavors yet. Tell me about the texture. Bite.”

Zach bites. “It’s – crunchy. Sort of. Crisp. Tender, but there’s a bite to it. What is it?”

“Concentrate on the flavors. See if you can tell me what it is.”

Zach reaches up, tentative, to find his hand, and opens his mouth again for Chris to feed him. He wonders idly if the world is ready for a gay remake of _9½ Weeks_ , and then bites down, chews thoughtfully. Juicy. Firm. Faint hint of the ocean, but not fishy. “Um. I’m gonna say it’s the shrimp.”

“Well done. I cooked it with a Chinese method called _guo you_ , ‘passing through the oil’. That’s why it’s nice and crisp to the tooth. Like biting into an apple, right? Then it melts on the tongue.”

“I wouldn’t have thought crunchy shrimp would be a good thing, but yeah. It’s…” Zach searches for the right word. “It’s fun.”

“Ah, we’ll make an F-word out of you yet. Now have a sniff of this; tell me what’s in it.”

 _I’d like to make a different F-word out of you,_ Zach thinks, and inhales, frowns in concentration. “Licorice?”

“Well done! It’s actually Thai basil, which has an aniseed scent. It’s a pesto-style dipping sauce for the shrimp.”

“I’m pretty good at this!”

“You’re awesome. Now I want you to taste the shrimp with the sauce.”

Zach makes a face. “Licorice and _seafood_?”

“Trust me,” Chris says. “I got this idea from a French classic, _crevettes au pastis_.”

So Zach trusts him, and tastes them together, and goddamn, Chris Pine is right. Zach’s not sure why he’s so surprised: the guy’s a top chef. But it doesn’t _sound_ like an appetizing combination. It doesn’t have any right to taste as great as it does.

Chris takes off the blindfold afterwards, and eats the other shrimp as Zach blinks and smoothes his eyebrows back down.

“Hang on,” he says, dipping a finger into the sauce and ignoring Chris’s rolling eyes. “You’re telling me you used a Chinese cooking method, based on a French recipe and substituted Thai basil in the pesto sauce? Wouldn’t that count as Asian fucking fusion?”

Chris laughs again and pulls another plate over. “Ben said you liked Asian fusion.”

“You seemed pretty opposed at the time.”

Chris leans onto the bar, tucking his crossed arms into his chest. “I just don’t like being told what to do. I’m contrary like that.”

“Aren’t you, just?” Zach leans forward too, picks out a…something from the third plate, and holds it up to Chris’s mouth.

“You’re supposed to be doing the tasting.”

“We can share.”

Chris closes his mouth on the appetizer, the tip of his tongue flicking over Zach’s finger. He watches Zach suck on that same finger, and swallows hard.

“Why did you get into cooking, Christopher?” Zach is pleased to see Chris watching his mouth, his tongue tapping out the syllables of his name.

“It sounds stupid when I say it, but – I like taking care of people. I like _feeding_ them, nourishing them. Not just their bodies, but their souls too. Food should be something that brings comfort, draws people together – like you and your friends, eating out of the same pot. That’s what food should be all about.”

“How poetic."

“You’re laughing at me.”

“I would never.”

Chris pulls down a couple of wine glasses and pours them each out a half-glass of wine. “It’s five o’clock somewhere, right?” he says at Zach’s raised eyebrow. “Besides, it’ll bring out the flavors. Here.” He pushes a plate towards Zach, and Zach picks out something triangular with shredded orange things on top. Chris pops one of the vegetarian options. “Life can suck so much, sometimes, and all we have to cope with it are our senses. If we can fill them up, enjoy them, take pleasure in them daily…”

“Oh, I see. All this talk of nourishing souls – but really, you just love indulging your senses. You’re a hedonist.” Zach tosses back his glass of wine and Chris pours him out some more. “So am I.” He gives his best bedroom eyes, and Chris does not look unmoved. Chris finishes his glass of wine, and pours another, so Zach decides to take a chance. “Doesn’t sex fulfill all those needs just as well? And with less prep time?”

“But the prep time’s the best part!” Chris says, and Zach isn’t imagining it, they’re totally flirting. “Why did you become an actor?”

“I was good at it. I enjoyed it. Seemed like the thing to do. These days…these days I’m not sure why I’m doing it.”

Chris looks sympathetic. His cheeks are a little flushed from the wine. “Yeah, I think I know the feeling. Trying to cook in LA can be dispiriting. You reach this level in your career, where you’re fashionable and everyone wants to eat at your restaurant, and you’re booked out for months with celebrity names. And then they come, and they don’t want to eat anything that has fat in it, or sugar, or carbs, or they’re only eating fucking yellow foods because of the newest religious craze, and it’s like…”

“Like they’re rejecting your nourishment for their souls? This is Hollywood, man. I don’t think half the people here _have_ souls, and those who do just didn’t get the price they were asking from the Devil. Yet.”

Chris gives him a strange look. “You still seem to have your soul.”

“Not for lack of trying,” Zach mutters. “So, listen. Do you wanna go get a drink sometime? After the party, maybe?”

Chris stands up straight then, pulling his shirt straight, and tucking the dishtowel back into his pocket. “Um. That’s probably not a great idea. Sorry. I’ve probably overstepped a line here.”

“What are you talking about? You’re totally into me.”

Chris hesitates, gets the apologetic look on his face again. “I’m really sorry, Zach, but I don’t date—”

“Clients? Because I can fire you, if that helps.”

“No—”

“Movie stars? Assholes? I guarantee you I’m not as big an asshole as I seem most of the time, it’s just I’ve had a weird decade where I grew into this role, playing my own life, you know—”

“Zach, I don’t date guys on the rebound.”

Zach stares at him, and then abruptly laughs. “I’m not on the rebound. There’s no rebound. I am not a rebound kind of guy.”

Worse than the apologetic look now, Chris’s face is morphing into pity, and suddenly Zach doesn’t want to date him quite as badly as he did a second ago.

“Zach, I know you might _think_ —”

“Don’t talk to me like that. Don’t tell me what I fucking think or feel. Ben wasn’t anything. He was just _available_. And he didn’t dump _me_ ; I got rid of him when I was tired of him.” His hostile tone is designed to hit Chris right in the gut, but it doesn’t seem to be working. Chris just raises his eyebrows.

“I don’t date guys who think people are disposable, either, Zach. Although I don’t believe you really meant what you said just now.”

“I’m not the one who compared him to an industrial vacuum.”

“Yeah. Well, I shouldn’t have said that.”

“Are we done here? I have a photo shoot to get to. I approve of your food agenda and wish to subscribe to your newsletter. Send me some pamphlets or something.” He swings off the bar stool and heads to the door. He doesn’t really have a photo shoot, but Chris Pine is starting to chip away at his perfectly-constructed veneer, and it’s disconcerting.

“Vegan cupcakes for all, or whatever?” Chris calls after him.

Zach pauses in the doorway. “Huh?”

“That’s what you said last time.”

“Oh, Christopher. I never remember anything I say unless it’s been scripted for me. But, sure. Vegan cupcakes for all, huzzah!”

He makes sure to close the door calmly on the way out.

Chris Pine is just some guy doing the catering for Zach’s awesome thirty-fifth birthday. So why, Zach wonders, is he so hung up on the fact that Chris Pine, some guy, refused the offer of a date?

Okay, maybe he’s not just _some guy_ , Zach admits a few days later. He’s a world-renowned chef who keeps getting interviewed in unlikely places such as _GQ_ and _Playboy_ and photographed with his arms crossed and a determined look in his eyes that turns Zach on despite himself. And he studied under famous chefs that Zach has heard of now because he’s watching the Food Channel more, and knowing that Chris did a six month traineeship with Heston Blumenthal is pretty impressive, even if Zach doesn’t understand what molecular gastronomy means.

Zach knows all this because figured he should find out a little something about the man he’s paying to cook his food, just in case he’s a closet psychopath and tries to poison him. Because psychopathology or irredeemable heterosexuality are really the only two possible reasons to turn down a date with _Zachary Quinto_ , for Christ’s sake. And Chris Pine is out and proud, so clearly he must be a serial killer.

Anton agrees with him while Zach whines about it for three days straight, but by the day of the party, Zach has got it out of his system. He has completely recovered himself, and is prepared to give Chris Pine the coldest of shoulders.

 

***

  
“What the hell do you _mean_ , he’s not here? He’s supposed to be here. I’m _paying_ him to be here!”

The woman Zach is shouting at doesn’t even flinch. She just marks something else off her checklist, and repeats her statement. “Mr. Pine is currently off-venue, but I’ll be happy to help you with anything you need, Mr. Quinto.” She smoothes her hair over her shoulder and fixes him with a steely glare. “As soon as you lower your voice.”

Around them, a small team of chefs are shouting at each other, moving around the kitchen with a speed that Zach thinks is probably inadvisable given the number of steaming pots and pans on stoves. Out in the main area, the food has been coming through with clockwork regularity, each bite perfect-looking and apparently delicious. Zach doesn’t know, because he hasn’t tried any of the food.

“This is my party, and I’m paying you and all the people in this room, so if I want to yell, I’m fucking _going_ to—”

“Oi!” It’s the redheaded man Zach saw at the restaurant the other day, far less genial now. “I suggest you watch your tongue, mate!” He’s just walked into the kitchen, carrying an empty platter, and caught Zach in full (foul-languaged) flight.

“It’s alright, Simon. Mr. Quinto here is just concerned for our illustrious leader.”

Simon comes up close to Zach and glares up into his face. Zach swallows. “If I hear you speaking to Zoë like that again tonight, we will have a problem. Alright?”

“Alright.”

Zoë impassively counts the number of _hors d’oeuvres_ on the next platter and nods to Simon. “It’s ready to go.” Simon hoists it easily, still glaring at Zach, and pushes his way back out the swing door to the restaurant. “He really will make your evening quite painful,” Zoë says to her checklist, and it takes Zach a second to realize she’s actually speaking to him.

Zach has been behaving like a jerk all night, as several of his friends have been glad to inform him. Finding out that Chris isn’t even here to appreciate the fact that Zach is ignoring him was the last straw. But Zoë’s impassive reaction to his tantrum, and the very cranky Englishman who absolutely looks like he’d be prepared to take Zach out the back and belt him one, have convinced him that he’s probably overdoing it.

So Zach switches on the charm instead. “I’m sorry. I’m being an ass. I just really wanted a chance to say thank you to Chris. I know he’s busy, but—”

“Mr. Pine will be here later in the evening.” She’s completely indifferent to his change in tactics.

“Oh.”

“And I’ll have to ask you to leave the preparation area, Mr. Quinto. You’re violating our food safety policy simply by being here.”

Uncomfortably aware that he’s just been insulted, but unable to think of a suitable comeback apart from another screaming session, Zach removes himself back to the throng in the main restaurant.

He has to admit it looks fantastic. The tables and chairs have been removed and Anton has arranged for his favorite DJ to play a set. The lights are spectacular, and people are already bouncing around to the music in the demarcated dance area. Anton has somehow managed to make Zach’s thirty-fifth birthday the most exclusive party of the month, if not the year, and every guest that Zach can see is famous, rich and beautiful.

And a complete stranger.

“Mate, you need to stop looking like someone pissed in your beer.” It’s his agent, Karl, clapping him on the back and grinning widely.

“This party sucks,” Zach says, and has to repeat it twice more before Karl can hear him over the noise.

“So fire Anton.”

“It’s not Anton’s fault.”

“Say again?”

“Never mind,” Zach hollers, and grabs a champagne flute from a passing waiter. Thankfully, it’s not Simon. “Where are Neal and Corey?”

“Left. Said it wasn’t their scene.”

 _Well, fuck them_ , Zach thinks indignantly, pretending to himself that it’s outrage and not hurt squeezing his heart. Neal and Corey have been acting weird for months now, breaking lunch dates and making excuses when Zach invites them out to parties. And the invitations from them to Sunday lunch or Friday night dinners have waned as well. Zach has found himself missing those one-pot meals for some time, and talking about them with Chris the other day just reminded him of the fact that his oldest friends seem to be avoiding him. He thought it was Ben for a while, but things don’t seem to have changed even now that he’s gotten rid of Ben.

So it must be Zach they don’t want to see.

He spends the next hour circulating the room, networking, impressing people, sowing seeds for potential hook-ups. It’s soulless, and boring beyond belief, but if there’s one thing Zach can sell, it’s being the life of the party. He does make sure to avoid Simon, though.

Two hours in, Zach has had four shots of tequila, a martini so dry he feels like he’s going to need a hydrotherapeutic massage tomorrow, and three giant shrimp with Thai basil pesto dipping sauce. Chris Pine might be a total dick, but those shrimp are amazing. He’s taking a moment in a dark corner to himself, pretending to text someone so it doesn’t look like he’s sulking, when the music suddenly stops and the crazy dance lights go out. The restaurant lighting comes on, warm and diffuse, casting a convivial golden glow over the crowd. Zach’s dark corner is not so dark anymore.

He hears the unmistakable sound of silverware tinkling against a crystal glass, and the crowd falls quiet.

“I’d like to thank you all for coming out,” says a voice, and Zach narrows his eyes. It’s Chris. “And don’t worry, because I’m not going to make a long speech.” There’s a murmur of polite laughter. “I’d just like to say that it’s a great privilege to be able to host Zachary Quinto’s thirty-fifth birthday party, and I hope you’ve enjoyed the food so far.”

Some comedian – a literal comedian, although his last movie bombed – shouts out something funny, which Zach ignores, because he’s trying to push through the mass of people and get to where that voice is coming from.

“Glad to hear it,” Chris is laughing, when Zach arrives at the front. He’s standing in front of a buffet table spread with plates and silver bell covers. In his research, Zach has discovered that those covers are called cloches. He can’t help but stare at them, wondering what’s beneath. There are four waiters standing behind the table waiting to life the covers, including Simon, who fixes Zach with a gaze that is not a glare, but is not exactly friendly either.

But Chris looks at Zach with a smile. “And here’s the birthday boy himself.” Everyone claps. “Zach and I share a similar food philosophy of sustainability, which is why I was so delighted to—”

“You _do_?” Karl says in Zach’s ear. “Was this approved? No one ran this endorsement past me.”

“Oh, fuck off, Karl.” He’s actually trying to listen to what Chris is saying.

“—and I also have a personal philosophy that everyone should have cake on their birthday, even Hollywood stars who think they need to watch what they eat. And so…”

The waiters raise the cloches from the plates and Zach blinks. They’re filled with cupcakes, all different varieties; so many colors and so many calories. As he watches, Chris walks to the wall behind and pulls a rope. A banner drops down, proclaiming, VEGAN CUPCAKES FOR ALL (OR WHATEVER) in striped letters.

“Seriously, Zach, what the fuck?” Karl growls, but Zach is laughing. His heart feels light. Lighter than it has for days. Weeks, even.

“Private joke.” He slaps Karl on the back and walks over to Chris, shakes his hand, holding on for a long time so that the _Vanity Fair_ photographer can take a picture. Definitely not because Chris’s hand is warm and firm and squeezing his in what Zach hopes is a promise for later that night.

It fucking _better_ be.

“You did say you’d subscribe to my newsletter, support my agenda, etcetera, etcetera,” Chris murmurs. “And I striped the letters on the banner just for you. You seem to like stripes.”

Zach raises his eyebrows. This is a long way from _I don’t date guys on the rebound_.

The party continues. More cupcakes than Zach expected disappear from the buffet. Once the crowd goes back to chatting and the music starts up again and the lights go back to flashing green and red and blue and purple, Chris slips up to him. “Come with me,” he says into Zach’s ear, and it’s not like he’s going to turn him down, not with that sultry suggestive tone.

Chris leads him into the kitchen. Zoë is sitting on the counter chatting to John, and slides off guiltily when Chris appears.

“Zoë, how many times?” Chris asks, but there’s no fire behind it.

“My ass is absolutely _not_ a health hazard.”

“I can vouch for that,” John says with a lascivious smile.

“Alright, alright. You can all go mingle or something,” Chris says. “I need to talk to Zach.”

“Why would I want to mingle with – oh, al _right_ ,” John grumbles, catching sight of Chris’s face. “ _Boss_.” Zoë and John and the two other chefs wander out of the swing door like a miserable camel train.

“So – Zoë and John?” Zach asks.

“Don’t even ask. Anyway – here.” He pulls over a Tupperware container and takes out a slightly larger cupcake, piled high with toppings.

“What in the hell is _on_ that thing?” Zach asks in awe.

“Dairy-free buttercream frosting, chocolate ganache, banana chips, walnuts and sprinkles. Oh, and a maraschino cherry. On a peanut-butter cupcake. All vegan and local ingredients. So it’s healthy _and_ delicious.”

“It doesn’t _sound_ healthy.”

“Well, that part might be a lie. I call it the Elvis.”

“Oh, my God. You’re trying to make me fat, aren’t you?”

Chris just smiles and splotches a small candle into the middle of the cupcake. He lights it with a match and pushes it towards Zach. “Happy birthday. You get to make a wish.”

Zach blows out the candle automatically, and thinks, _I wish you would let me fuck you,_ then gives him a skeptical look. “What’s all this about? Last time I saw you—”

Chris pulls out the candle and actually sucks the bottom of it, cleaning the frosting off. “Last time I saw you I was presumptuous and not very kind. And frankly, you seem like you could do with a friend. So I wanted to apologize, and, well, food is the way I do that. Try it. Please.” He peels down the gold foil wrapper and holds it up for Zach to bite into.

Zach opens wide and lets Chris feed him, too taken aback at the apology to do anything else. His first thought when the flavors hit his tongue is about how many gym circuits he’s going to have to do to work this off, but a second later he’s overcome by the luscious texture of the buttercream, silky in his mouth, and the delectably nutty taste of the cake itself.

“This is totally worth three hours at the gym,” he says through the mouthful, and Chris laughs, pleased. Zach swallows, and Chris reaches out to swipe at a smear of frosting beside his mouth. He sucks it off his finger, looking straight at Zach, who says, “Now if only I could get my wish.”

“If you say it out loud, it won’t come true.”

Zach pulls him close and plants his mouth on Chris’s full, pink lips. “Does that count as saying it out loud?”

“Um,” Chris says, looking down between them. Zach thinks it’s modesty for a moment, or the lead up to another _This isn’t a good idea_ speech, but then he feels something sticky and cold soaking through his shirt.

“Ew.”

“Yeah. Sorry about that.” The cupcake has squished all over both of their chests, caught between them during the kiss.

Zach raises Chris’s fingers to his mouth and sucks them clean slowly and thoroughly. By the time he’s finished, Chris is pushing up against his thigh, and Zach can feel an unmistakable hard-on beneath his jeans. “I think you’d better clean me up, too,” Zach suggests. “In private.”

“Sounds like a plan.”

“My car or yours?”

“You’ve been drinking all night, and I’m parked out the back. We can avoid the paps.”

Zach scowls. Yeah. The fucking paps; he’s actually forgotten about them for a moment. “Wait, you get papped, too?” he asks in surprise.

“I’m a youngish, famous, gay chef, Zach. Yes. I get papped. And I don’t handle it well, actually. My publicist—”

“You have a _publicist?_ ”

“How about we continue this conversation back at my place. Or yours?”

“Mine.” There’s no way Zach is chancing a walk of shame in the morning.

  
***

  
Besides, Zach likes his place. It’s the perfect place to fuck. He has everything set up just the way he likes it, and lube in all the unexpected places just in case the mood strikes him in, for example, the laundry or the kitchen. Although given Chris’s reaction to Zoë sitting on the bench, Zach is willing to bet sex in the kitchen will be a no-go.

But Chris does not immediately melt into his arms when the door closes behind them, even when Zach shoves him up against the wall and dives for his neck, sucking like a horny teenager. And okay, they’re both covered in cupcake remains, but _still_.

“Whoa!” Chris says. “You wanna show me around first? I need to use the bathroom, clean this shirt off a bit.”

Zach pulls back to laugh, but Chris is actually serious. “Oh. Down the hall there, on the left.”

“Thanks. Hey, do you have any decaf?”

“Is decaf a code word for some kind of sex toy?”

“No.”

“Then yeah, I guess.”

“Great. Make some up? I’ll just be a second.”

Zach changes his top and then automatically sets the coffee machine and wonders what in the hell he’s got himself into. When Chris comes out, his shirt is cleaner but with a large wet patch at the front that sticks to his chest and makes Zach stare. But Chris just smiles at Zach’s free-trade, organic coffee beans, takes a cup, and starts telling Zach about how he went on a coffee tasting tour to find the perfect grounds for his restaurant. Zach gazes at him, intrigued not by the tale but by the fact that he’s not already naked in Zach’s bed.

Chris actually wants to _know_ stuff about him, and Zach doesn’t really do that, or at least not with his usual type. He finds himself talking about his childhood, and Chris’s sympathy about his father’s death actually seems genuine, it’s so fucking strange, and Zach isn’t sure if he likes it, but he’s still talking, still sharing.

“So my mom had to go back to work after he died, and before that she was mostly looking after him. Joe used to look after me. Got me to the school bus. Helped me with my homework. Fed me. We mostly had grilled cheese and tomato soup, because that was all he knew how to cook. I still…sometimes when I feel lonely, I make it for myself.” _Oh, my God, Quinto, shut the fuck up. Shut the fuck up, this is not what you talk about with a one night stand. Shut up shut_ —

“I know what you mean. My mom used to make Hamburger Helper casseroles every Thursday night. It was the highlight of my week. To tell you the truth, I still make it sometimes. Don’t tell anyone, though, I need to keep my cred. I wouldn’t be able to cater celebrity birthday parties if people knew I ever willingly let Hamburger Helper pass my lips.”

Zach laughs, stops, and laughs again. He hasn’t laughed like this since last time he was hanging out with Neal and Corey.

“But I don’t know if I really believe you, Zach,” Chris continues. He’s relaxing on the couch, one arm slung across the back of it and coffee in the other hand, his legs spread so wide that Zach thinks his jeans are in danger of splitting right up the crotch. Which he wouldn’t be opposed to. “You, lonely? Does not compute. You have people around you all the time.”

Zach snorts. “I have starfuckers around me all the time. They don’t want to spend time with _me_ ; they want to bask in the movie star glow. And my real friends, my oldest friends, lately they don’t seem to…” He can’t finish the sentence. It’s like his birthday wish in reverse. If he doesn’t say it, it won’t be true.

“Maybe that’s because of your attitude problem.”

Zach shoots Chris an outraged look, and opens his mouth to bitch him out, tell him that he didn’t invite him round here to _talk_ to him and why isn’t he already bent over and begging for it, but Chris’s mild expression douses the fire. “You think I don’t hear myself?” he says instead. “Half the shit that comes out of my mouth makes me cringe inside. I know I’m turning into the World’s Biggest Asshole, okay? I get that. I just don’t know how to stop it. When I got famous, ten years ago, I went _insane_ with it. You have no idea what it was like. Everything I wanted, _anything_ – it was always yes-yes-yes, more-more-more as long as I stayed in the closet and kept making the movies I was told to make. No one stopped me. Even Corey and Neal got caught up in it, and my other friends. We were young and stupid and suddenly we had money. You don’t know what it’s like.”

Chris shrugs. “I have an idea. I was a jerk for a while in my twenties too, Zach. You’re not a special snowflake that way; we all do dumb shit. The difference is, most people learn from it and stop doing it.”

“I didn’t ask you over to psychoanalyze me.”

“I know. But it’s a free service.”

“You don’t know what it’s like. You’re out. You’re out and it didn’t affect your job and people still love what you do.”

Chris stands up, says, “I’m gonna get another coffee. You want one?” He touches Zach’s shoulder gently on the way to the kitchen and Zach feels something painful in his chest as he does. He’s grateful Chris is out of the room as he fights to regain his composure.

“You know what I wanted to call Piñon when I opened it?” Chris asks, coming back into the room. “Hole in the Wall. I was planning a whole theme thing…anyway. My business partners vetoed it. They said that people would laugh about it if they found out I was gay, that they’d call my place the Glory Hole instead. So I caved, and went with Piñon. I would still totally go for Hole in the Wall if I could, but Piñon is trade marked now and everything. But I thought it was funny.”

It _is_ kind of funny. Zach smiles.

Chris sits down on the coffee table in front of him, bumping his knees into Zach’s until Zach spreads them to give him room. “Then my business partners told me I should keep my orientation under wraps. That I should play straight in the publicity interviews. I said no way, and bought out their shares – they were more than happy to let me have them. They didn’t want to be associated with me, and they thought I was going to fail. I rented a billboard to advertise the restaurant, and underneath my picture I had them write, ‘And by the way, I’m gay.’ I got the last laugh, because I was successful, and now I don’t have to hide anything.”

“It’s different in the movie business.”

“I guess it must be, because there are an awful lot of closeted actors.”

“If I could be out, I would be.”

“Okay.”

“I mean it.”

“I believe you.”

“Because then I wouldn’t have to count on sleazy hook-ups in the back room of a party or date people I don’t like or make my boyfriends walk five feet behind me or…or anything like that.” Zach slaps a hand over his face. “Tell me the truth, Pine. You put something in my coffee to make me spill all my innermost secrets, didn’t you?”

Chris takes his coffee and puts it on the table. “I think you just needed to get it out,” he says. “And as a reward, I think we should make out now.”

“Make out? Are we twelve?”

“We are thirty-five today, or at least, _you_ are. I am still a youthful thirty-four. And I like making out.” He straddles Zach in the chair and smiles down at him, blue eyes luminous.

“Why do you even like me, man?” Zach asks. “I’m a closeted, friendless jerk who doesn’t know anything about food.”

“That’s not who you are at all.” Chris leans in to kiss him, and Zach lets him, relishing the feel of those plump warm lips on his own.

“You’re not trying to nourish me, are you?” he asks suspiciously, when Chris breaks the kiss. “Trying to make me feel all warm and happy inside?”

“I could nourish you with my cock,” Chris says solemnly, and then chuckles. “That was a terrible line. You could probably think of a better one.”

“I just say the lines I’m given. Although, even _you_ can’t love the taste of semen that much.”

“It’s an acquired taste. But you know, taste is one of the most powerful sense-memory triggers.”

“So when I come in your mouth you’re going to be reminded of every other guy you’ve ever fucked? Fantastic.”

“No. When you come in my mouth I’m going to remember how you taste forever.”

Okay. That? Was hot. Zach balls his fists in Chris’s shirt and pulls him down again, but Chris bypasses his mouth and heads for his neck. Zach starts to think that the food Chris eats must really enjoy the experience, because Chris nibbling on his neck and ear is incredibly erotic. And then Chris starts talking.

“No sooner had the warm liquid mixed with the crumbs touched my palate than a shudder ran through me and I stopped, intent upon the extraordinary thing that was happening to me. An exquisite pleasure had invaded my senses, something isolated, detached, with no suggestion of its origin.”

“What?”

“It’s Proust.”

“What?”

“Marcel Proust. Don’t you know about his famous madeleine? He dipped it in his tea, and the taste brought back a childhood memory he’d forgotten.”

“Yes. I just didn’t think you’d be quoting French literature at me in the middle of a make-out session.”

“I studied literature at college before I went into the culinary arts. How does it go…‘This new sensation had on me the effect which love has, of filling me with a precious essence; or rather this essence was not in me, it _was_ me.’”

“Perhaps we could worry more about _my_ precious essence, and where it’s going tonight. Mouth first and then ass? Or vice versa?”

Chris just chuckles and kisses him again, bearing down on his shoulders and keeping him in place against the back of the chair. Zach pushes him away after another few minutes have passed, impatient.

“I want to fuck you,” he says, in his guaranteed-to-have-them-splayed-and-begging-for-it tone.

But…it doesn’t seem to be working. “Do you, now?” is all Chris says, and then keeps kissing him.

So Zach tries again. “Mm-hmm. I wanna fill you up and make you come on my cock.”

“Huh,” Chris says. “Then I think we might have a problem, because I don’t bottom.”

“What?”

“I. Don’t. Bottom.” He kisses Zach in between each word.

“Yes, you do.”

Chris raises an eyebrow. “Excuse me?”

“I mean…not for other guys, maybe, but you will for me.”

“Jesus Christ, Zach. And you were doing so _well_ there for a while, acting like a decent human being.” Chris runs a hand through his rumpled hair and looks away. His lips are flushed a deep pink and the skin of his neck is coming up in red splotches where Zach has been rubbing his face into it. “Maybe this was a mistake.”

“No, no. No mistakes. It’s fine. We can stick with hand jobs. Blow jobs. I want to try out my new super-taste buds on you anyway.”

“And what if I had my heart set on fucking you, Zach?”

Zach thinks furiously, but while he does, he sees a slow smile come over Chris’s face.

“Are you – are you fucking with me?” he asks cautiously.

“That’s the whole debate in a nutshell, isn’t it?” Chris gives him one more kiss and then asks, “Did Hollywood suck out your sense of humor?”

“So…you _do_ bottom?”

“I might. Not today, though.”

Chris Pine must have a degree in Infuriation. A masters. A _doctorate_. But Zach is not to be outdone.

“Come on, Chef. Nourish my soul.” He bites down on Chris’s earlobe.

Chris snorts, and wriggles off him. “Where’s the bedroom?” Zach pulls him by the arm towards it, unbuttoning his own shirt with one hand on the way and dropping it on the floor. But when they get to the bed, Chris pushes him onto it, on his stomach, and straddles him. This is _not_ how Zach thought tonight would go.

He gives an incredulous laugh. “What are you doing? I _definitely_ don’t bottom.”

“If you could just concentrate on not being a spoiled brat for, oh, I don’t know, ten minutes? Then _maybe_ you’d get a treat.” Chris holds him down by the shoulders, ignoring Zach’s attempts to throw him off. “Zachary!” he snaps at last. “Just _let me take care of you_.”

Zach stops struggling and tries to relax. By this time, he’s usually balls-deep, and the whole talking thing and actually liking Chris – because, fuck, he does, he really does – it’s disconcerting and unexpected and this is _absolutely_ not how he thought tonight would go. Chris is _massaging_ him, and that’s so fucking unfair.

“This was supposed to be a one night stand,” he says into the pillow, and Chris pinches the back of his neck.

“Behave.”

The massage starts to feel really good, and Zach lets himself enjoy it, gives in to the strong fingers kneading at his muscles. By the time Chris is done, he feels like a wobbly plate of jello. Would Chris ever make jello? He must have asked aloud, because Chris replies.

“I learned how to make jellies and blancmange under Heston Blumenthal. That man was a genius, even with the classics. He’s not a chef, he’s an _alchemist_. When I started out I really wanted to go into molecular gastronomy, but I also loved the local produce we have around here and the idea of walking lightly on the planet, you know? It was a tough decision.” He slides off Zach, and nudges him gently until he rolls over onto his back. “But in the end, my complete lack of ability to comprehend anything scientific foiled my attempts at molecular gastronomy.”

“Mmmmmm.”

“You sound happy.”

“Yep. Didn’t even know I was so tense.”

Chris starts unbuttoning Zach’s jeans. “Okay. It’s time now.”

“Now that I’m in a massage coma, it’s time to ride me like a cowboy?”

Chris stops and gives him a stern look. “What did I say before? Your cock is going nowhere near this perfect specimen of ass, not tonight. And also, if you keep acting out this asshole persona, you’re not going to get _anything_.”

Zach tries to think of a joke about _being_ an asshole and _Chris’s_ asshole, and comes up blank. So instead, he says, “You could gag me.”

“Don’t think I won’t,” Chris assures him, and then he bends and sucks Zach’s dick down like a spaghetti noodle. The noise he makes sure sound like he’s tasting something good, and Zach can’t help giggling. The tequila that he thought had worn off is back in a big way, making his head spin and his limbs heavy. And that mouth on his cock, Jesus, maybe chefs have a special talent for sucking dick because they use their tongues so much in their day jobs, or maybe that’s unfair to the profession as a whole, but whatever the reason behind Chris Pine’s talent for blowing cock, Zach approves. He thinks about the light blue dishtowel and giggles again.

“I’m all for having fun during sex, but perhaps you could giggle a little less,” Chris says, raising his head.

“Please.” Zach has never had to beg for anything, or at least not since he got famous; hell, he never even has to _ask_ for anything, because everything is always ready and waiting for him. The word is unfamiliar to him, so he repeats it. “Please. Please don’t stop.”

And Chris, thankfully, stops stopping, and goes back to it, his tongue sliding everywhere and seeking out every ridge, every vein, swallowing his dick down like it’s no big deal to deep throat on the first date. Zach’s balls get the same attention, and he’s a quivering mass of needy flesh by the time Chris comes back to his cock. His vocabulary has deserted him and all he can say is _please please please_ until he shoots, filling Chris’s mouth with splash after splash. Hearing Chris’s guttural, greedy groan makes him shudder again in a last, dry spasm, almost painful.

  
***

  
He wakes the next morning alone, his head a bit fuzzy and dried drool on his chin. Chris has left a note pinned to the pillow, and really, could he _be_ any more of a cliché?

 _Hope you’re still feeling nourished. Give me a call. You owe me._  
  
Zach thinks he means the fee from his birthday party for a moment, before last night floods back, his dick twitching at the memory, and – oh, fuck. He had a world-class orgasm and then rolled over and went to sleep. He’s _never_ done that before. He’s always made sure his lovers have a spectacular orgasm of their very own before he kicks them out; it’s the Zachary Quinto Experience, for God’s sake, he has a _brand_ to uphold, and while he might be selfish in most things, he’s not in bed.

Once he talks to Zoë – not telling her anything like the real story, obviously, because _hello_ – she gives him Chris Pine’s home address. Zach hopes she’d never be so easy with other random strangers asking for the information, but the coy tone in her voice makes him suspect that he’s been the subject of gossip in the kitchen ever since he first turned up to demand venue hiring and catering.

Chris lives surprisingly close to Zach. It’s a nice-looking house, large but not ostentatious. Zach composes himself and settles on his friendly smile (as opposed to sexy) before knocking on the door.

Oh, God. Chris is wearing a dirty apron and nothing else that Zach can see. “Isn’t that a food safety issue?” is the first thing that Zach blurts out, and Chris smiles.

“Whatever. I’m wearing underwear. I dreamed about this soup my mother used to make and when I woke up I _had_ to have it, so…I just threw on the apron and got to it. You have perfect timing, actually. Had lunch yet?”

The soup is roast pumpkin, and Zach has only ever had pumpkin in sweet things before, so he’s dubious but keeps his mouth shut. Chris leaves him in the lounge room, and then unfortunately goes to get dressed. Once he’s pulled on track pants and a light sweater over the apron, he takes Zach out to the garden.

Chris has an honest-to-God greenhouse in his back yard, and bush after bush of herbs around the garden, flourishing even in the cool winter months. Zach follows him around like a puppy, interested in everything. Chris picks some fresh sage and then they go back to the kitchen, which is all warm wood and terracotta tile and the complete antithesis to the sterile white and steel of Piñon.

Zach watches as Chris frizzles the sage in organic butter, and then serves them both up an enormous bowl of soup, topped with the burnt sage butter. He also drizzles some sherry into the soup, which Zach thinks should taste _wrong_ , but doesn’t. And there’s fresh homemade bread, and more organic butter to go on it, and Zach is going to blow up like a fucking balloon if he hangs around Chris Pine much longer, but he doesn’t care at all. The soup warms him like an internal furnace. Chris tells him a story about John and Zoë’s indiscretions at an important function, and Zach realizes after half an hour that he hasn’t though about himself once.

It’s a really good feeling.

Afterwards, Chris lets Zach pull him into the bedroom, which he finds after walking into a linen closet, a bathroom and a guest room (“Don’t tell me where it is; I have a sense for these things, like a detective.” “Okay, Columbo.”) and Zach undresses him while Chris tries to kiss his mouth.

“I owe you,” Zach says, sinking to his knees, and in the past it’s always been a stroking of his own ego to watch the eyes above go wide with lust, but here and now he just wants to make Chris feel good.

Chris has this incredibly beautiful body that makes Zach want to admire him like a work of art, but with the temptation of the rigid cock wagging around in front of his nose, Zach dispenses with sensuality and just gets down to business. For once, Chris doesn’t seem to mind. Zach makes sure he gets his fingers involved, rubbing into his crack and up against his hole. Chris makes a lovely, appreciative noise, which Zach takes as a very positive sign for things to come. Because although he’s decided to turn over a new leaf, there’s still no way Zachary Quinto is bottoming.

He uses every trick in the book, every possible variation with his tongue, and makes sure that when Chris comes, it’s in his mouth, not straight down his throat, so that he can savor the taste. It’s nicer than a lot Zach has tasted.

Figures, Zach thinks. Chris lives his life based on scrumptiousness; if anyone was going to have delicious jizz, it would be him.

“It’s like you were out to prove something,” Chris says later, when they’re wrapped up in each other in his bed.

“I had to give you the full Zachary Quinto Experience,” Zach tells him seriously. “You didn’t get it last night.”

“Christ almighty, Zach, you are something else. Please stop talking.”

The next week passes in a pleasant haze of Chrisness, amazing blow jobs, and better food than Zach has ever thought it would be possible to make in a private kitchen. They spend almost every night together, talking and laughing over a meal first, and then going to bed, and Zach starts to feel like maybe Chris is right. Maybe his soul does need some nourishing. He feels good, spending time with Chris, making him smile, talking about a time before he was famous. But in bed, every time he gently rolls Chris over and makes a move on his ass, Chris takes his hands firmly and says, “No.” It’s incredibly frustrating, but Zach tries his best to be good about it. In the end, eight days pass before Zach reverts to form and has a fully-fledged celebrity tantrum about it.

It starts in the kitchen of Piñon, and all the chefs and trainees and dishwashers and other desultory staff members stop and stare as Zach yells, “No one’s ass is that fucking precious, Pine!” and Chris glares at him with the same slice-and-dice expression he wore the first time Zach turned up in his kitchen, before dragging him out the back door to the alley behind the restaurant.

Things devolve rapidly, and even Chris loses his temper.

“You are _embarrassing_ me in front of my staff.  This isn’t a movie, Zach!” he shouts. “You’re not the star of the show here. This is real life!  Whatever this thing is between us, it’s not just the setting for your latest performance.  And I am not a supporting player.”

“Look, if you don’t want me to fuck you, just tell me now and we can compensate somehow.”

“This is not about you fucking my ass!” Chris screams, and there’s a long pause, and then Chris puts his hands over his face. “Oh, my God. I can’t believe I just…”

“Just _tell me_ what the problem is. I just want—”

“You’re too used to having whatever you want, Quinto.” Chris’s voice is so quiet that Zach has to strain to hear him. “You act like a normal person sometimes, and I really like you.  We get on, and you're funny and interesting.  And then other times you're just - you're fucking unbearable to be around.  You’re spoiled, and selfish, and I don’t want to be just another notch on your bedpost. I’m worth much more than that. I am not _disposable_.”

Zach is appalled. “I don’t think you’re disposable. I don’t think that.”

“Can you just leave me alone for a while?” Chris turns away, pauses at the kitchen door and says over his shoulder, “Just stay away from me for a few days. I need time to…” He disappears back inside, and Zach has to walk all the way around the block to get back to his car.

Chris doesn’t call him and doesn’t call him, and Zach stays away, trying to be good, trying to do what he wants, but if Chris isn’t going to give him a _chance_ to apologize, how is he supposed to make it up to him? Plus, when he tries to make soup or grill a steak or bake anything, he fucks it all up and is reduced to his previous staples of Thai takeout or a fat-free, carb-free frozen meal.

It’s depressing.

So he gives Anton a job he’ll actually really enjoy, along with a direction to book two first-class tickets to Heathrow. And then Zach makes multiple phone calls until he gets his own way and speaks directly to Heston Blumenthal.

  
***

  
When Chris opens his front door, Zach doesn’t give him a chance to tell him to go away, he just launches into things. “I know you said to stay away, and I did. Until I couldn’t any more.”

Chris gives a little sigh. He’s wearing his apron again, although he has jeans and a really warm-looking sweater on underneath.

It makes Zach want to snuggle into his heat. He flashes his brightest smile, and says, “I want to take you on a vacation.”

“You what?”

“I booked flights for us, first class, to London. Tonight. I want to take you on a vacation, just for a few days.”

Chris laughs, until he realizes Zach is serious, and stops laughing. “You’re not kidding, are you? That’s…that’s ridiculous, Zach. No.”

“I know it seems like a big deal, but it’s really not. When you wanted to apologize to me with food, I let you.  This is the way I apologize.”

"With international flights?"

"Go big or go home, that's my motto."

Chris shakes his head slowly. “This is really – no. Zach, this is too much.”

“It’s not, not really.  Well, it might be right now, but I promise it won’t be when we get there. I have a surprise for you. A _good_ surprise.  And I promise to let the ass thing drop.  You don't want me in there, that's fine.  We can play it your way.”

That probably wasn't the best thing to add, because Chris is annoyed now.  “Zach, you’re a nice guy and all – well, actually, you seem like an asshole who _used_ to be a nice guy. But I barely know you. And I’m not interested in babysitting a celebrity. _And_ I can’t just fly off to a different continent on a whim. I have a job. I have responsibilities.”

Zach shakes his head emphatically. “I already cleared it with Zoë. She’s getting John to step up while you’re gone. John was really happy to do it.”

“Uh, _yeah_ he was.” Chris glowers. “He’s been angling for a partner role in the catering business for the last year.”

“So what’s wrong with that? This’ll give him a chance to prove himself.”

“Zach, _goddamn_. You can’t just waltz into my life and start rearranging it! Not my life, and not my business either!”

This is the moment Zach has been practicing for all morning. “Chris, listen. I _know_ I live my life like it’s a movie, like it’s something not entirely real, and that the grand gestures that work in fiction don’t work in real life. In real life, this is totally inappropriate and makes you feel obligated, and it’s too much. But could you just – let me do this? Let me show you that you mean something important to me. Let me take care of you, this time. Just for a few days, could you live in a movie with me?”

He doesn’t reply for a long time, and Zach feels his heart dropping, dropping, dropping, until Chris looks up at him. His eyes are amused.

“Depends what genre, because I really hate rom-coms.”

“Action-adventure. It’ll be a thrilling ride with a hidden treasure at the end.”

“I guess I could do that.” Chris shifts, looks like he’s about to let Zach in the door. “Tell me the truth – you learned that speech before you came round, right?”

“Anton wrote it. He’s been trying to break into screenwriting. But the ideas were mine. I’m just not very good at…explaining things.”

“I’ll live with you in your movie for a few days, Zach. But after that, maybe you’d like to try coming back to the real world for a while.”

Zach isn’t entirely sure what he means, but he’s coming to England and he’s not mad and – and he’s even leaning in to kiss him. For a moment, Zach contemplates using his new and improved sense of taste to see if he can work out what Chris had for lunch, because his mouth has a tang of _something_ in it, but in the end he’s too distracted by his own dick, filling out nicely in his jeans. Story of his life in many ways.

“And you will never, _ever_ interfere in my professional life again.”

“Absolutely not, Chef."

The flight is long and boring, and Chris won’t go to the bathroom with Zach to join the Mile High Club, which makes Zach accuse _him_ of being boring, and then Chris ignores him for two hours and listens to one of the plane radio stations instead. Zach fidgets and fusses and tries to clamp down on his instinct to queen out. It’s a big accomplishment that he’s not demanding mini-bottle after mini-bottle of booze, which is what he usually does when he flies. He’s not a big fan of flying.

London is cold and rainy, and Zach wants to grumble about how the weather in LA is much better, but he bites his tongue and watches Chris charm the customs officers, and the cab driver and the hotel staff, and tip the bellhop entirely too much.

Finally they’re alone, but Chris wants to shower, and Zach is feeling airplane grime as well and wants to come with him. But Chris turns to him with a look of surprise and says, “Shouldn’t you go to your own room?”

Zach is about to explode before he realizes that Chris is just teasing him. “Don’t push me, Pine,” he says, trying to keep the snarl out of his voice. Air travel always leaves him feeling depleted, which in turn makes him cranky.

“Poor Zachary,” Chris says, imitating his pout. “I gotta admit, although you’re not the ideal travel companion, you _have_ been on your best behavior. Come and shower with me.”

The way Chris slaps his palms against the tiles to stop from sliding to the shower floor in his post-orgasmic bliss is _very_ satisfactory. Afterwards, they zonk together in the bed, too tired from the journey to fool around any more, and next time Zach opens his eyes, it’s morning. Gray, cold and rainy, but morning, and they have a drive ahead of them.

The room service breakfast is pretty good, or at least Zach thinks so. He’s feeling far more cheerful today. Chris looks doubtful about the food, and only eats half, but doesn’t complain. And he’s affable when Zach tells him to pack an overnight bag; doesn’t even chastise him when Zach snaps at the concierge, who can’t book the exact model of car that Zach wanted.

But Zach makes sure he apologizes afterwards to the concierge, and basks under Chris’s look of approval.

Everything comes together eventually. Zach drives, until he absent-mindedly crosses the road to the wrong (right) side, and then Chris insists on driving the rest of the way. Zach tries not to sulk, and mostly succeeds.

It doesn’t take long before Chris figures out where they’re going.

“Oh, my God,” he says, as the road signs suddenly make sense. “Berkshire. Oh. My. God.”

Zach laughs. “You finally clued in?”

“Oh, my God. Don’t say anything else. I don’t want to be wrong.”

“If you say it out loud, it won’t come true?”

“I’m serious, Zach. Chefs are a superstitious bunch. Not a _word_. Just in case.”

Zach thinks about his own need to turn around three times and say certain words under his breath before the first day of shooting on any movie, and keeps quiet.

  
***

  
Bray is a lovely little village, moneyed up to the gills and picturesque even in the cold winter weather. It doesn’t take long to find the high-class bed and breakfast Zach has booked for them.

Chris can’t take it anymore. “The Fat Duck?” he demands, after they’ve settled into their room. “You can say it now. Now that we’re here.”

Zach nods and grins. “The Fat Duck.” Heston Blumenthal’s restaurant, and hard to get into at such short notice, unless you’re Zachary Quinto. A very determined Zachary Quinto. Sometimes he likes to use his petulance for good causes, and making Chris happy definitely seemed like a good cause.

Zach is hanging up his suit for tonight, but when he turns around he has an armful of enthusiastic Chris, hugging him so hard that it’s difficult to breathe.

“It really _is_ like a movie. I haven’t seen Heston for _years_. How did you…did you think of this all by yourself?”

“I did, yeah. Because you said-mmf.” He’s being kissed. And then he wants to fuck, but Chris wants to go for a walk, like some kind of tourist or something, but Zach agrees. Even though it’s _freezing_ out there.

And that night, at the restaurant, all the expense and all the trouble are totally worth it to watch Chris’s face light up like the fourth of July when he sees Heston, and they hug, and talk about old times and people Zach doesn’t know and cooking and food and…liquid nitrogen? Well, okay.

He’s not the center of attention, and he’s happy with that. He’s _so_ happy with that. It’s freeing.

The food is like nothing Zach has had before. He lets Chris order, even though the idea of snail porridge sounds so revolting that Zach thinks he’s going to gag, but when it comes, and he touches the green…stuff tentatively to his tongue, it’s _fantastic_. The courses go by in a parade of color and flavor and scent and texture, and some things that Zach privately thinks don’t even count as _food_ , like a ball of something immersed in liquid nitrogen that then evaporates on his tongue into taste-vapors. But Zach thinks that his senses are so full that he could die, hedonistic and happy, face down in the empty plate.

Chris is bouncing in his seat, so excited for the next course that he’s making the other patrons hide their smiles behind polite hands. “Zach, Zach, this next thing, oh, my God, you won’t even – Heston, he’s just – you are going to be _so_ blown away.”

“Calm down, Pine, people are staring.”

“I don’t care!” he crows happily. “I don’t care. You know the one thing that’s hard to incorporate into food? _Sound_. It’s easier if you’re grilling out, you know, that wonderful sizzle on the barbecue, it gets you all hungry and ready for it even before you can smell it, but in a restaurant, you never get the benefit of the sound—”

“What in the fuck are you talking about?”

But Chris won’t tell him, just drums his fingers on the table top and grins madly at Zach until the waiter brings the next course. It’s a perfect representation of the sea-shore – sand, and little bits of seafood, and green things that look like seaweed, and _foam_ , just like the ocean, and everything is edible, the waiter assures Zach, but it’s almost too pretty to eat. And then there’s a conch shell placed next to him on the table, and Chris glows with anticipation.

Inside the shell is an iPod. Zach looks at Chris, bewildered. Chris holds out the ear buds to Zach, nodding furiously when Zach hesitates.

Zach’s ears fill with the soothing _whoosh_ of the sea, waves lapping on sand, and it’s so crazy, but it makes everything different. He can smell the ocean, clean and salty, wafting up from his plate, and when he tastes – he’s reminded suddenly of a day, long, long ago when he was on vacation with his mother and brother and his father, too. Before Dad died. They were at a beach somewhere, God knows where, and he and Joe were playing in the sand. He looked up and saw his mom kiss Dad gently on the forehead, and smile at him, and Zach feels the same contentment and happiness roll over him that he felt on that day.

“Are you okay?” Chris asks.

Zach realizes that his eyes have filled with tears. “Yes. Yes.” He smiles, and tries to find a way to explain it, but all he can think of to say is, “It’s like a madeleine.”

  
***

  
“Did you do this just so you could fuck my ass?” Chris asks later, when they’ve stumbled into bed, still pulling off clothes.

“Oh, come on. I’m not _that_ much of a douche bag.”

“I don’t think you’re a douche bag. I think you just do a really, really convincing impression of it in Hollywood.”

Zach doesn’t know whether to take that as a compliment or insult, so he says nothing, and compliantly waits for Chris to go down on him.

But Chris is looking at him, staring into his soul or something, speculative and hesitant, until Zach blurts out, “ _What?_ ”

“Okay.”

“Okay, what?”

“Your cock. My ass. It’s time now.”

It’s like Chris has some internal clock for sex, telling him when it’s time for sucking dick, time for a hand job, time for ass-fucking. But at last the clock is working in Zach’s favor.

“Halle-fucking-lujah,” he says, grinning. “Wait, is this just because of The Fat Duck? Because that would be all skeezy, repaying me with sex.”

“This is not because of The Fat Duck. This is because it’s the right time, and I’m not imagining you hovering with a knife at your bedpost while you’re still buried inside me, ready to cut a mark on it as soon as you come.”

“You wound me, sir,” Zach says, hand on his heart.

“Am I wrong?”

It’s all-in now, or fold. “No. This – you – we’re more than a casual thing. And I’m trying to be good to you. I’m trying to be a better person.”

“See? It’s the right time. Oh, but don’t think I’m getting on my hands and knees for you. You’re going to be looking right at my face the whole time.”

Well. That’s even _better_.

Chris Pine turns out to be a fantastically wanton bottom, writhing around and panting for it as Zach fingers him, deep and slow, sucking on the head of his cock while he does. His eyes are all glazed over by the time Zach is rubbered-up and ready to sink in. He lines himself up, intent on taking it slowly, carefully, but Chris wraps his legs around his waist and _yanks_. Zach is plunging inside him before he even realizes what’s happening, and falls forward, nose to nose with Chris, whose eyes are bluer than the ocean and filled with pleasure.

“Fuck me,” he says, and Zach does exactly as he’s asked, driving into him again and again until the sounds Chris is making seem to fill up the room and reverberate off surfaces. And when Chris kisses him, tasting like the caramel and pastry they ate for dessert, Zach comes, gasping into his mouth and sucking on his tongue.

“Stay in me,” Chris warns him in a low voice, and Zach has to prop himself up on his arms so Chris has room to jack himself. He watches Chris’s hand, working with precision, and he can smell the sweat and scent of sex rising up between their bodies. Zach wants to bottle it and have it to smell _always_. And then Chris shoots, shouting out, and finally Zach can collapse back onto the bed, dispose of the condom, and pass out from sensory overload.

  
***

  
“Jesus Christ, Zach – you have _fifty-three_ missed calls.” Chris holds up his cell phone and waves it at him. It’s their last day in England, and they’re back in the London hotel, packing up regretfully. The last four days have been the happiest of Zach’s life for a long, long time, and he’s pretty sure Chris has enjoyed himself too. Zach has certainly done everything in his power to make sure he would.

“Oh, yeah. That’s Karl. My agent.”

“Shouldn’t you, I don’t know, call him back?”

“Nah. I know what he’s going to say. And I’ll deal with it when we get back to LA. Back to the real world.”

Chris raises his eyebrows, tucks socks into his suitcase. “You think LA is the real world?”

“It’ll be a lot more real from now on, yeah.”

Chris stops, looks concerned. “What do you mean? What have you done? You’ve done something. Is that what Karl’s calling about?”

Zach laughs and shrugs. “I took a page out of your book.”

“Zach, _tell_ me.”

“I took out a billboard ad. My picture. ‘And by the way, I’m gay.’”

Chris looks shocked and horrified before hysterical laughter wins out. “You didn’t. You _did_. Christ, Zach. What about your career?”

“Fuck my career. It’ll still be there. And if I’m less famous after the dust settles, I don’t care. As long as I have someone to take care of me, and as it happens, I’m dating this guy who completely _insists_ on taking care of me, so—mmf.”

They check out late, because they can’t resist one last, quick fuck up against the wall of the hotel room, and nearly miss the plane. LA, on their arrival, is hazy with yellow smog, and they’re both lethargic from travel. They are ambushed by paparazzi as they leave LAX, shouting questions and asking if Chris is his boyfriend. "Guess they've seen the ad," is all Zach says, and squeezes Chris's hand. They’re silent in the cab until they hit the freeway, and Zach nudges Chris, nods out the window.

It’s there: his billboard. A sultry-looking, enormous photograph of Zach, and the words, _And by the way, I’m gay_ , emblazoned across the bottom. “God, I’m awesome,” Zach marvels.

Chris chuckles. “An hour back in California and you’re overcome with your own immensity again?”

“Hey, I have a decade of assholishness to overcome. It’s going to take time.”

Chris smiles fondly at him. "So, I was thinking. You should invite Corey and Neal and their girlfriends over to my place. I’ll cook. You can bring the bread and wine. We can all hang out.”

“All eating out of the same pot?”

“You got it.”

“Yeah,” Zach says. “I’d love that.  And vegan cupcakes for all?”

"Or whatever," Chris agrees.

  


 

[The Elvis](http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_nbPG00bPo6A/TTNgDqliQDI/AAAAAAAABZE/cwjmMjPzsag/s1600/PICT0378.JPG) (totally ripped off from the amazing [Vegan Cupcakes Take Over The World](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1569242739?ie=UTF8&tag=wwwtheppkcom-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=1569242739), and adapted for my purposes)  
[Snail Porridge](http://www.flickr.com/photos/52391789@N00/526512892/in/photostream/)  
[Sound of the Sea](http://www.flickr.com/photos/52391789@N00/526693529/in/photostream/) and the [conch shell iPod](http://www.flickr.com/photos/52391789@N00/526693523/in/photostream/)

  
 


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